


Walk Like a Camel

by kiki_miserychic



Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's Eleven (2001), Ocean's Thirteen (2009), Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Implied Slash, M/M, Male Slash, Road Trips, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 04:59:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiki_miserychic/pseuds/kiki_miserychic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story differs depending upon which person you ask, but one thing is the same in everyone’s version of events: Rusty wants funnel cake. That is the first and last agreeable point because any tale that involves Rusty Ryan and Danny Ocean is bound to deviate with each telling. The largest point of contention is wether or not that’s the reason they ended up in jail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Like a Camel

This story differs depending upon which person you ask, but one thing is the same in everyone’s version of events: Rusty wants funnel cake. That is the first and last agreeable point because any tale that involves Rusty Ryan and Danny Ocean is bound to deviate with each telling. The largest point of contention is wether or not that’s the reason they ended up in jail.

Most of the problems began after the heist, which would go to figure. Taking Saul’s advice, Rusty convinces Danny that the two of them should go on a road trip to avoid the backlash and heat. To be fair, Saul didn’t mention anything about a tour of the world’s largest roadside attractions, that part Rusty took upon himself to imply when reiterating the conversation. By this time Rusty already had Danny in a ‘63 Chevy Nova going toward the desert.

Rusty drives with the wrist of his left arm over the steering wheel, letting his hand dangle limply and brush his fingertips over the heated dash. Danny notices the dark inks that travels up that hand and arm to vanish under the sleeve of a T-shirt. It wasn’t there the last time and Danny makes a mental note to ask him where he got it later, although he probably won’t remember. Danny is content to hang his own arm out of the passenger side window to feel the bite of the air press against his skin.

 

A couple hundred miles and they stop to refill the tank and empty their own. Wordlessly, like most things between them, Danny slides into the driver’s seat and Rusty pours himself into Danny’s still warm former position. It’s late and the air is cool enough that Rusty turns his face into it as it whips in over the partially rolled up window.

 

Rusty begins to bounce his leg, which Danny can feel on his end of the seat from the minute vibration waves. Ten minutes later Danny pulls into a rest stop, cajoling a smile to the surface of Rusty’s lips, which is plastered on when he returns from the shudder inducing facilities.

“So what exactly is the intent of this excursion?” Danny waits until Rusty is back in the car to ask what he should have yesterday. Danny hadn’t believed for a second that it was anyone’s idea except for Rusty.

“Funnel cake.” Rusty shuts the car door before answering. He hadn’t believed for one second that Danny believed for a second that the trip was someone else’s suggestion.

“Funnel cake.” Danny raises his eyebrows slightly, but his voice doesn’t give the indication of a question.

“Funnel cake. It’s kinda like a doughnut, but kinda like an elephant ear. It’s basically a deep-fried pastry people eat at carnivals. They pour batter through a funnel into boiling fat, take it out, and coat it with sugar. The job’s over and I want some authentic funnel cake from Pennsylvania, not that Midwest crap.” Rusty talks about food the same way he talks about a good heist or good sex or good sex during a good heist.

“Oh, of course, funnel cake.” Danny says, as if there’s any other explanation.

 

Not even three hundred miles later Rusty wakes up forgetting when he fell asleep. He stretches and jerks his head at the sign for the gas station coming up a few miles ahead. A confused Danny pulls up to the pump moments later without question. Rusty leans over to sleepily tap the gas gauge that teeters near the obnoxious E.

 

Nearly two hundred miles later Rusty stretches his arms out again until his grey long sleeved shirt stretches right along. There’s a rest stop up ahead complete with the clique trucker bar, which Danny thinks would be a great place to take a break from the open road. No one has ever said all of Danny Ocean’s ideas are golden. Here is the part where you are cautioned not to try conning a heavyset, fall down drunk giant of a man with fists the sizes of Thanksgiving turkeys at nine in the morning. This is not recommended, especially not when your partner is at the other end of the bar rolling his fingerprinted glass across his forehead. Danny sees this like a tell from miles down the road, but still goes though with his con. By the end Rusty’s rubbing his mouth and chin, sending pings over the back of Danny’s neck. Not long after it’s a wildly forceful swing sending torrents of pain and “oops” though Danny’s body. Thankfully they’re on the outskirts of a town, so Rusty sweet talks them out of the situation and into the only local motel. He doesn’t need to tell Danny “I told you so” because Danny already knows. The whole side of his face knows.

“Told you.” Rusty thinks a shortened version is the least he should give considering the display of immaturity and lack of foresight normally afforded to green newcomers. Danny’s sprawled out on the twin bed closest to the door blurrily staring up at the putrid ceiling with one eye. Rusty stands in the doorway to the darkened bathroom and tosses a compress that lands directly on the center of Danny’s chest with the sound of tinkling clicks.

“I know.” Danny knows. He knows a lot actually. He knows the ice wrapped in a towel on his face hurts worse than the actual punch. He knows Rusty would be driving the remainder of the outing. He knows all this sand is getting to him. He half expects tumbleweeds to roll by. He knows Rusty would always have sand in his blood and sugar in his veins. Right now he knows that he can’t con a con quite yet. Sometimes he just doesn’t care.

“Do you ever think of going -?”

“No, too many people, too hard to breathe,” Rusty cuts Danny off knowing that he was asking about New York. “You?” Everyone thinks Rusty loves being around people, but not many realize it’s a select few that he enjoys being with.

“I don’t know,” a beat, “maybe,” another pause, a little longer, “yeah.” Danny concedes, then they’re both quiet for a while with Danny’s face numbing and Rusty watching from the other side of the room. It’s hours later when Danny wakes up with a background pressure grinding in his head. Rusty slams the door and Danny thinks he couldn’t have missed a car following them all this time until he realizes that Rusty’s energy isn’t a laid back maniac, but almost gleeful. One look to Rusty and the clothes he’s carrying and even with one functioning eye, Danny knows this won’t end well. He’s in trouble all right, but not the kind he thought.

 

“No way.” Danny refuses to consider the possibilities that Rusty holds within what looks like someone’s prom tuxedo. Danny can’t believe Rusty would steal something like that. There are few but finite rules when it comes to what they do, but stealing someone’s prom outfit must break one of them.

“Don’t look at me like that. I saved it from unspeakable horror.” Rusty rolls his eyes and tosses the clothes on the vacant bed. 

“It’s a prom suit. I thought unspeakable horror was mandatory.” Danny’s already given up on the subject before he began. It’s not like he’ll make Rusty return the thing.

“It already saw its night last month. The guy was in the laundry mat was trying to stuff it into a washer with his jeans and socks. Kids these days don’t understand the meaning of ‘dry clean only’.” Rusty’s voice echoes from what Danny assumes is the bathroom accompanied by running water and splashing.

“My hero.” Danny sits up to inspect Rusty’s offering. It’s dark slate, clean cut, and simple, which was surprising coming from a source that was for the most part unreliable. It was going to be stuffed into a washing machine after all. The original owner couldn’t be all that fashion conscious.

“Damn straight. Put it on. I’m starving and having you walking around looking vaguely homicidal would be suspicious.” Rusty leans against the door jam with his shoulder as he dries his hands on a suspect white towel. Never trust a pristine white towel this far away from civilization.

“You always are.” Danny’s already shedding his disheveled and bloody blue button up in favor of the slightly disheveled white dress shirt. He transfers his crumpled half pack of cigarettes to his new front pocket under the attentive eye of the other man.

“They say those things’ll kill you.” Rusty announces, like he isn’t a hypocrite with a pack in the back pocket of his jeans.

“So can other things. What else do they say?” Over the years Danny’s gotten proficient at dressing given a limited amount of time.

“They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. And I’m dying for some cheese fries.” Rusty is another thing to add to the list of what can kill Danny, but only if cheese fries aren’t in front of him in the next ten minutes.

“They say a lot, don’t they?”

“Hmm, what do they say about me?”

“That you’re salty and taste good with ketchup.”

 

“You happy now?” Rusty asks now that they’ve been in a jail cell for a few minutes. It’s a holding cell in truth, but they’ve been detained nonetheless. Danny in his not so gently used suit and Rusty oozing indigent charm.

“No, I am not happy now. How was I supposed to know it’s illegal to eat a doughnut and walk backwards? What kind of a law is that?” Danny says loud enough for Rusty to hear on the other side of the cell because when they entered Rusty made what could be called a mad dash to the furthest reaches of the room.

“It’s a stupid one that young cops love to enforce when they’re bored and looking for a laugh.”

“What state are we even in?” Danny never was one for noticing silly things like where they were.

“Ohio. Marion to be exact and it’s illegal to eat a doughnut while walking backward, which is what you did in front of a doughnut shop full of police officers.” Rusty didn’t have to get arrested along with Danny. The older of the two officers who took it upon themselves to rid the world of wrong doers didn’t feel like listening to Rusty’s smooth talking and pushed them both into the back of their car.

“How do you know so much about obscure laws in the middle of no and where?” Danny wonders if Rusty expects him to know all of the laws ever written.

“I think I should know a law if I’m going to break it is all.” So maybe Rusty does expect him to know all of the laws.

“Are you mad?”

Nothing from Rusty.

“You are, aren’t you?”

Nothing.

“How was I supposed to know?”

Still nothing.

“Rusty?”

“No. I’m not mad, cranky, but not mad.”

“We’ll be fine.” Danny smiles and when Danny smiles, even though you know things are going to hell, you still believe every word that comes out of his mouth. Rusty is like everyone else in that respect.

“What if -,” Rusty starts.

“Only that would -,” Danny begins.

“But then we -.”

“Wait, what about -?”

“No, no, that -.”

“We can -.”

“Then we -.”

“Got it.” There goes Danny with that smile that could have people believing anything.

Their plan doesn’t get put into effect because the police return a few minutes later with rushed apologies and suppressed giggles. The police of Marion, Ohio would like it noted that they were manly giggles. Rusty and Danny knew enough not to question why they were being released in light of what went down earlier in the week.

When they step outside they blink against the sunlight despite being inside for no more than an hour without being fingerprinted or otherwise booked. They both silently agree that this is the end of their vacation and this story. You might be wondering what the point is or what the moral is. You could argue that the point is road trips end badly and the moral is never to eat a doughnut while walking backward in Marion, Ohio, but one thing is for sure: Rusty never did get any funnel cake.


End file.
